1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for displaying information to a telecommunications station. More particularly, this invention relates to an improvement for analog telephone station displays wherein the display includes originating number identifying information and/or the date and/or time of day information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A service which has become more and more popular in recent years is one for indicating to a called customer the identification of the caller. With conventional analog telephones, this service, called incoming calling line identification (ICLID) or Caller ID, is provided through the Public Shared Telephone Network (PSTN) by means of an auxiliary display on the called party's telephone equipment which receives information from the PSTN identifying the calling party between the first two rings and uses the received information to display the number of the calling party. A problem of the prior art is that, for analog lines, while ICLID does provide information to help the called customer on incoming calls, ICLID does not provide certain significant information from the telecommunications network to help the calling customer on outgoing calls, or while a customer is idle or talking.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,608,788 to Demlow et al. describes a partial solution to this problem. That patent, for an information display provided to the calling party, teaches displaying many types of information on the calling telephone, including the following: (1) the name of the called customer; (2) a motto, slogan, advertising, or cost message from the called customer; (3) information to give the calling party additional options, such as automatic callback or an invitation to leave a voice message; (4) information from the central office reporting conditions such as overload; (5) a service identification mark from the central office switching system and/or an inter-exchange carrier. Useful as this information is, there is additional information that is perhaps more useful to a calling party that is not taught by Demlow.
Under various circumstances, it is desirable for a calling party's telephone equipment to be provided with the originating number identifier (ONI, or simply the telephone number) of the calling telephone line. For example, a calling party may wish to determine whether a call directed to a particular terminating number (terminating number identifier or TNI) is a toll call from the calling party's telephone line. Such a determination may be made if the ONI of the call is known. In further example, for calling arrangements where toll charges are ONI-TNI dependent, a calling party will need the ONI to calculate the toll charges to a particular TNI. In yet further example, the calling party's telephone equipment may have generic Least Cost Routing (LCR) software installed, that can determine and execute the least expensive route for a particular telephone call. LCR determinations typically require the telephone equipment to possess both ONI and TNI information. In yet further example, in circumstances where the calling party wishes to direct a called party verbally to call the calling party back at the calling party's ONI, the calling party must know his ONI to be able to provide that information. In other situations, the calling party may connect his own telephone equipment to the telephone line, for example a modem operatively coupled to a computer. The calling party's equipment in such situations may need to have the ONI of the telephone line to determine which of a plurality of available service access numbers are appropriate for the ONI's calling area; for example where the equipment is a computer with modem and the service to be accessed is an Internet connection, based upon the ONI the computer may determine an appropriate local access TNI for Internet service from a database within the computer. For these and other reasons, what is needed is a way for a calling party (or the calling party's telephone equipment) to obtain the originating number identifier from the public shared telephone network.
Under various circumstances also, it is desirable for the calling party's telephone equipment to be provided with the current date and/or time of day by the PSTN. For example, some LCR determinations may be based upon toll structures that are time of day and/or day of week dependent. While LCR in the prior art relies on time of day and day of week data from clock/calendar functionality inherent in the LCR equipment, obtaining date and time information directly from the PSTN may provide a greater degree of accuracy in LCR determinations. In more general terms, date and time of day information provided on demand in a simple and readily accessed form from an authoritative source can be utilized to great advantage by a telephone subscriber in many ways: this information, obtained from the PSTN, may be applied, not only to equipment related to telecommunications over the telephone line, but also throughout the telephone subscriber's home or office, in programming various devices and actions that are date and/or time dependent. For these and other reasons, what is needed is for a calling party (or simply a telephone subscriber) to obtain date and/or time of day information from the PSTN.